Pedophile

Great column (see link below) on why Polanski must not be released to freedom. The argument that he is no longer a threat(see link below) to young girls and has led a nice life for 30 years misses the point that all sentences are not for rehabilitation.

The same morons who praised Michael Jackson when he died, are the same nitwits who want to excuse the rape, front and back, twice each, of a child plied with champagne and quaaludes. People who commit crimes should be punshed as an example to others, to deter, to instill fear. I wonder if the Hollywood starstruck crybaby types would be so forgiving if say, Cheney had raped their 13-year-old daughter and then skipped the country. To his credit, even Cheney would not have allowed a "settlement" from the abuser, but then again, he doesn't need the money, just a character infusion.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

New Democrat Coalition team votes against the public and optional plan for healthcare insurance

The five members of the New Democrat Coalition on the Senate Finance Committee all voted against the healthcare public option today, because they belong to a "Third Way" movement that is supported by corporations, just as their campaigns are beholden to contributions from big companies. This is the same movement that opposes cramdowns on mortgages, limiting credit card interest, card check and a host of other traditional value Democrat Party efforts. They are really the moderate Republicans now missing from that less than GOP.

The traitors to the American people were: Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.).

Conrad was especially annoying today as he attempted to push his moronic co-op plan when the committee was debating the public option. He cited France as a place that has a good healthcare program, but ignored that 94% of the people receive coverage from a government regulated plan at no charge. What a nitwit, or what a liar, but what's the difference to the outcome.

New Rule: If America Can't Get it Together, We Lose the Bald Eagle

It is not fashionable to get angry about anything in American society unless you are a right-wing status quo believer that the next world will reward you for your stupidity and arrogance in this life.

I blame it all on the ladies descended from the Prohibition movement. Even our anti drunk driving ads have degenerated into the sin of getting a "buzz", let alone smoking with your window open, and whistling at ladies who deserve such homage.

The men who fought at Normandy and Midway have been replaced with a passive aggressive, whining, oh so sensitive caricature of manhood (can I use that word or will the pickets descend on Hatfield Township and castigate my ignorance of basic pc?).

Keep going Bill Maher! Hope you are still fighting the battle against corporations, when the government (Republican by then) introduces the testosterone test. Levels too high will be dealt with by something sharper than twit wit, unless you have a waiver from Glum Beck, Tush Limbaugh or Shrill O'Reilly.

Bill Maher said it well:

New Rule: If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute. I don't care about the president's birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to "Yes we can." Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they've gotten is a dog.

Well, I hate to be a nudge, but why has America become a nation that can't make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs - oh, and there's still 60,000 troops in Germany - and can't make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure. Even when we address something, the plan can never start until years down the road. Congress's climate change bill mandates a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions... by 2020! Fellas, slow down, where's the fire? Oh yeah, it's where I live, engulfing the entire western part of the United States!

We might pass new mileage standards, but even if we do, they wouldn't start until 2016. In that year, our cars of the future will glide along at a breathtaking 35 miles-per-gallon. My goodness, is that even humanly possible? Cars that get 35 miles-per-gallon in just six years? Get your head out of the clouds, you socialist dreamer! "What do we want!? A small improvement! When do we want it!? 2016!"

Read more at HuffingtonPost

18 percent of Mexicans would enter U.S. illegally, Pew Research Center poll says

Reuters reports that one in three Mexicans would migrate to the United States if they had the chance, and many would go illegally at a time of rising drug violence in Mexico, a Pew Research Center survey released this week showed.

Asked if they would like to move to the United States, 33 percent of those taking part in the survey said "yes" and 18 percent said they would move even without the necessary visas, meaning as illegal aliens. Even with the United States hit by its worst recession in decades, many Mexicans still try to cross into the United States as criminals, some paying traffickers thousands of dollars.

The Pew survey found that 57 percent of Mexicans believe those who move from Mexico to the United States say they enjoy a better life. The usual working person wage in Mexico is between $12 and $18 a day and food for a family costs about half that total.

With drug violence becoming a scourge across Mexico, 81 percent of respondents said crime is a major problem and 73 percent said illegal drugs are also a serious issue for their country.

Despite this, the Council on Foreign Relations, and their New Democrat Coalition globalist stooges, continue to tout the benefits of NAFTA and a North American combination nation, where Americans would see their wages deteriorate more and Mexican wages would increase. However, it appears most people would not want to work in Mexico, so that only by just reducing wages in America, could you remove the incentive for illegal entry here.

Ann Minch defeats Bank of America

And the Beat (and Fight) Goes On

The Maximus Baucus healthcare bill is the Obama bill.

Baucus is a stooge of the White House, not an opponent. Obama is keeping his hands clean by having others (New Democrat Coalition members) do the dirty work. He pulls the strings and then blames someone else.

We are urged to support the President in his "struggle" for healthcare, but he has no announced plan, except that he that has "smiled upon" the maximum ass and that lackey's efforts to please the drug and insurance companies.

Remember, it was the White House (the President), who first made the deal with big pharma, which later showed up in the big ass bill.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Real reason newspapers are closing....

Wendell Potter rips Baucus healthcare framework

Wendell Potter, a former vice president of communication at Cigna, has ripped Democratic Senator Max Baucus' health care reform bill in an interview with reporters Monday, calling it an "absolute gift to the industry."

Potter also testifed on Tuesday before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee:

Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to address the House Steering and Policy Committee. Madam Speaker and Members of the Committee, my name is Wendell Potter, and I am humbled to be here today to testify about the need for meaningful and comprehensive reform and about the efforts of an industry I worked in for many years to shape reform in ways that will benefit it at the expense of taxpayers and policyholders.

In the weeks since my June 24 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, I have expressed hope at every opportunity that this indeed might be the year Congress will enact legislation to reform our health care system in ways that will truly benefit Americans for generations to come.

But I have also expressed concern that if Congress goes along with the so-called "solutions" the insurance industry says it is bringing to the table and acquiesces to the demands it is making of lawmakers, and if it fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.

H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, encompasses a omprehensive set of reforms that address the critical need for expanded coverage, lower health care costs, and greater choice and quality. Other legislative proposals, including the "Baucus Framework" being considered by the Senate Finance Committee's "Bipartisan Six," would benefit health insurance companies far more than average Americans.

The practices of the insurance industry over the past several years have contributed directly to the growing number of Americans who are uninsured and the even more rapidly growing number of people who are underinsured.

H.R. 3200 would go a long way toward making many of the standard practices of the industry illegal while providing much-needed assistance to low and moderate income Americans who cannot afford the overpriced premiums being charged by the cartel of large for-profit insurance companies that now dominate the industry.

H.R. 3200 would provide premium and cost-sharing assistance through the Health Insurance Exchange it would create. It would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a defined package of "essential health services" that all plans, public or private, would have to cover.

It also would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage or basing premiums on pre-existing conditions, gender or occupation. It would eliminate deductibles or co-pays for preventive care as well as the lifetime limits currently common in health insurance policies. The bill also would set an annual cap on out-of-pocket expenses that is more reasonable than in other proposals.

As important if not more important than those market reforms, H.R. 3200 would also create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers. Contrary to the misinformation being disseminated by the health insurance industry and its allies, the public insurance option would not have a competitive advantage over private plans. It would have to meet the same benefit requirements and comply with the same insurance market reforms as private plans.

As I told Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, insurance companies routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick as part of their never-ending quest to meet Wall Street's relentless profit expectations.

While the reforms proposed in various bills before Congress would seemingly restrict insurance companies' ability to put investors' needs over those of consumers, Members must realize that provisions of some proposals, including the Baucus Framework, would actually drive millions more Americans, including many who currently have access to comprehensive coverage, into the ranks of the underinsured.

An estimated 25 million Americans are now underinsured for two principle reasons. First, the high-deductible plans many of them have been forced into by their employers require them to pay more out of their own pockets for medical care, whether they can afford it or not. Second, more and more Americans have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices and bought what essentially is fake insurance.

The insurance industry is insistent on being able to retain what it calls "benefit design flexibility." Those three words seem innocuous and reasonable, but if legislation that reaches the president grants insurers the flexibility they claim they must have, and requires all of us to buy coverage from them, millions more of us will have little alternative but to buy policies that appear to be affordable but which will be prove to be anything but affordable if we become seriously ill or injured.

The big insurers have spent millions of dollars acquiring companies that specialize in what they call "limited-benefit" plans. Not only are the benefits extremely limited, the underwriting criteria established by the insurers essentially guarantee big profits.

H.R. 3200 would ban the worst of these policies. Other proposals, by providing financial incentives for employers to offer barebones plans with lousy benefits and high deductibles, would actually encourage them.

Unlike H.R. 3200, those proposals would not require employers to provide good benefits or even to meet minimum benefit standards. They also would permit employers to saddle their workers with the entire amount of the premiums in addition to the high out-of-pocket expenses, escalating the already rapid shift of the financial burden of health care from insurers and employers to working men and women.

The Baucus plan also would allow insurers to charge older people and families up to 7.5 times as much and younger people, impose big fines on families that don't buy their lousy insurance, and would weaken state regulation of insurers.

As a consequence, these proposals would do little to increase affordable coverage for those currently insured, or stop the rise in medical bankruptcy. They would, however, ensure that a huge new stream of revenue--much of it from taxpayers who would finance the needed subsidies for people too poor to buy coverage on their own--would flow--"gush" might be a more appropriate word--to insurance companies. And much of that new revenue would ultimately go right into the pockets of the Wall Street investors who own them.

Over the past several weeks, I have repeatedly told audiences around the country that the public option should not just be an "option" to be bargained away at the behest of insurance companies who are pouring money into Congress to defeat substantial and essential reforms. A public option must be created to provide true choice to consumers or reform will fail to truly fix the root of the severe problems that have been caused in large part by the greedy demands of Wall Street.

By creating a strong public option and restricting the insurance industry's ability to enrich executives and investors at the expense of taxpayers and consumers, H.R. 3200 will truly benefit average Americans.

The Baucus plan, on the other hand, would create a government-subsidized monopoly for the purchase of bare-bones, high-deductible policies that would truly benefit Big Insurance. In other words, insurers would win; your constituents would lose.

It's hard to imagine how insurance companies would write legislation that would benefit them more.

Over the coming weeks, I implore each Member of Congress to put the interests of ordinary, extraordinary Americans--the people who hired you with their votes--above those of private health insurers and others who view reform as a way to make more money...

White House once again is ignoring reform of their friends, the Wall Street financiers

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Economics is like mathematics - hard to understand for people who have not learned the discipline or who are too dumb or afraid to learn - including Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush and Reagan. Carter was smart enough, but they killed him with oil shortages and hostages. Clinton was a moral weakling, who sought Republican approval, even kissing up to that fat fig, Newt Gingrich, to end the Glass-Steagall act of 1933.

Basically, we have had Presidents since 1980, who seem inacapable of understanding finance, so they surrounded themselves with clowns like Greenspan and Volcker (he's still in "power" since 1979). The advice they received was to deregulate Wall Street and let big business destroy small business, remove restraints from network broadcasters in exchange for support, and cut out any protection enjoyed by unions, while opening the borders to millions of workers to become wage slaves.

President Obama may stay asleep. If he does awaken we should know it, because the White House will be cleared of the vampires, who only want to win elections - the public be damned. And that's not just Volcker and Rahm Emmanuel, but nearly half the cabinet, which is owned by corporations supporting the New Democrat Coalition and Progressive Policy Institute.

Just as the financial rape is complicated by subterfuge and banality, so is the election process and the political molesters it produces. The folks are targeting indivdual evil congresspeople are on the right track if they seek to destroy their chance of election.

Who would imagine Ron Paul and Arianna Huffington agreeing on financial system?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Debtor revolts against usury, forward to your friends, even the tea bag ones

Play videos - great comment on our society

Nice Political Cartoon

A Brief History of Corporate Whining

Obama's new malpractice "reform" is Baucus & New Democrat Coalition plan from last year

Did you notice the sudden introduction of malpractice reform by President Obama in his speech this week? If you think it was to appease Republicans, you are wrong.

The idea, including demonstration projects in states, comes directly from Sen. Max Baucus and the right-wing Democrat clubbers. It's all in an article from January, last year by David Kendall of PPI, a lackey of Will Marshall (see post here on 9/3/09).

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a research and education institute that is a project of the Third Way Foundation Inc., the braintrust of the Democratic Leadership Council, New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Democrats - the so-called moderate Democrats, as opposed to Democrats who support unions, want to help the poor, and detest unecessary wars.

Here's the PPI adivice that Obama "suddenly" is embracing:

Health courts should be tested locally and only then scaled up nationally. Some of the nation's most prestigious medical institutions have volunteered to serve as laboratories for health court experiments: New York-Presbyterian, Duke University Medical School, Emory Healthcare, University of Miami Medical School, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Yale-New Haven Health System and Yale Medical Group.

The Federal start-up funds for health courts could come from a small assessment on medical malpractice insurance premiums. Over time, premiums would fall as compensation for injured patients became more predictable and the new system helped to clarify standards of practice and reduce injuries. Initially, however, premiums would remain fairly stable: Malpractice insurers would no longer pay enormous awards, but they would more frequently pay limited compensation awards for injuries that today unjustly go uncompensated.

Senators Max Baucus and Mike Enzi, with Congressmen Jim Cooper and Mac Thornberry introduced in May 2007 the "Fair and Reliable Medical Justice Act." This act would authorize states to serve as "laboratories of democracy" and provide grants to test alternatives to the current medical malpractice tort system, such as health courts. This bill represents a bipartisan foundation for true reform, unlike President Bush's band-aid proposal to put arbitrary caps on jury awards for emotional pain and suffering.

You should therefore endorse the "Fair and Reliable Medical Justice Act" but also urge Congress to press forward with the creation of a health court system. Real health care reform is long overdue, and the health court idea provides a winning combination of good policy and good politics. It is an idea that will work for you, and work for the American people.

The effort here is to eliminate large awards to victims of malpractice. It is a Republican, big business initiative that the PPI and right wing Democrats have been urging for years.

China taxes imports heavily, saving jobs and their exonomy

One of the dirty secrets that big business and government leaders hide when praising so-called international free trade and globalization, is that it only applies to the stupid American taxpayer.

The reason is simple - the Value Added Tax (VAT), which is used in Europe, China, etc. to promote exports and restrict imports, so that jobs and manufacturing stay in their countries.

Take this example. An American company sets up a factory in China. It builds a bicycle and ships it to the U.S. There is a VAT of 17%, but because it is an export, the money is refunded, so there is no tax. It arrives in America, and since we lowered tariffs, it gets here tax free.

Now, in the opposite case. We build here, tax profits, and when it arrives in China, their government gets a 17% VAT, plus tariffs.

That's why our jobs are going overseas to factories in foreign countries, where our products are always hit with VAT and nothing is collected here for their products coming into the country.

Big business opposes the VAT for America. It would force them to use much more American labor and manufacturing resources.

Big retailers would have to pay more for imports because of the VAT, and they would then have to decide between buying imported or local products.

And in China they don't need a million nickel and dime taxes because of the VAT, which supplies about half of all the money to run the national and local governments.

China started to implement VAT in 1984 on 24 specified taxable items.

In December 1993, the State Council of China created "The Provisional Regulation of the People's Republic of China on Value Added Tax"，which was put into effect on January 1, 1994.

The official China ministry description of the VAT outlines the revenue sharing:

"VAT is administered by the State Administration of Taxation (the import VAT is collected by the customs on behalf), and the revenue from it is shared between the central government (75%) and local governments (25%). VAT is the major source of fiscal revenue for the Government of China, particularly the central government. In 2002, the revenue from VAT is 814.1 billion yuan, accounting for 47.61% of the state total tax revenue of the year, which is the first biggest tax in China."

The Provisional Regulation of P.R.C on VAT, requires the tax should be paid by enterprises or individuals who sell merchandise, provide processing, repairing, or assembling service, or import goods within the territory of the People's Republic of China on the added value derived from their production, selling merchandise, providing industrial repairing or assembling service. Exports receive rebates, because most other countries apply their VAT on imports (except the U.S.)

The VAT is very similar in Europe, India, Mexico, Canada and in almost every other country in the world

PPI must want more war spending and more American deaths in Afghanistan

Jim Arkedis is an august member of the genius club that works for the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), which is the think tank for the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its spawns, the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Democrats.

Yesterday, he ripped into a woman on the PPI site. She called NPR, so he spewed his war-mongering nonsense about why nobody should oppose more war spending for Afghanistan.

"I was listening to an NPR report this morning, ostensibly on heath care reform, when a Florida woman and Obama volunteer named ... Michaelson brought up a point about Afghanistan. Speaking about the uncertain prospects for health care's public option, she said (and I'm roughly paraphrasing):

We [Obama volunteers] were so enthusiastic, so full of hope, but now we're disillusioned. Not only with the public option, but also with the war in Afghanistan. Obama's got to listen to his base.

In mocking voice Arkedis wrote: "Well ahoy there matey to you too, Mrs. Michaelson. Let's review what President Obama actually said during the campaign with regard to Afghanistan. From his July 20, 2008 trip to Afghanistan:

"We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan, and I believe this has to be the central focus, the central front, in the battle against terrorism," Obama said in an interview with CBS News. "Losing is not an option when it comes to Al Qaeda, and it never has been."

"Rather than the president listening to his base, I think his base should start listening to the president. What in the sentences above made them think that the United States was going to de-emphasize Afghanistan?

"This has always been the problem with the harder-left elements of the progressive community - due in principle to Obama's reasoned opposition to the war in Iraq back in 2002, the hard-left has mis-believed (to coin a term that is perhaps more fitting of Obama's predecessor) that Obama is a bleary-eyed liberal, rather than a tough, moderate pragmatist underscored by progressive values.

"President Obama has been very consistent about his focus on Afghanistan, and his "base" has no grounds to stand on if they're unhappy with American commitment there," Arkedis claimed.

A little background. Arkedis' boss is Will Marshall at PPI.

Marshall is one of the founders of the New Democrat movement, which aims to steer the US Democratic Party toward a more Republican orientation. Since its founding in 1989, he has been president of the PPI.

He served on the board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an organization chaired by Joe Lieberman and John McCain designed to build bipartisan support for the invasion of Iraq. Marshall also signed, at the outset of the war, a letter issued by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) expressing support for the invasion.

Marshall signed a similar letter sent to President Bush put out by the Social Democrats USA on Feb. 25, 2003, just before the invasion. The SDUSA letter urged Bush to commit to "maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning."

This is the man behind the DLC ideas on NAFTA, exporting our jobs overseas, clamping down on Israel, pushing world government, elimination of malpractice suits, and watering down healthcare reform. When Kent Conrad and Max Baucus go to sleep each night, they must dream with love about their hero, Will Marshall. It's kind of sick to think about, but so is the direction that PPI has taken us.

AARP wants me to sign a petition - whoops!

Whenever I get a letter from AARP, I open it because I am a customer of their supplemental Medicare insurance program through United Health, as well as their prescription insurance. Together, I spend about $1,500 a year on their policies, plus the $96 a month for Medicare Part B.

For only $2,700 a year plus co-pays and deductibles and decades of Medicare payrol tax, you, too, can have this health insurance, described as an entitlement by Republicans, Blue Dogs and genius senate members of the New Democrat Coalition.

The letter this week wasn't a policy increase notice. Medicare will be announcing its hike of the onthly $96, probably at the same time they announce there will be no cost of living increase for Social Security next year. Oddly, you get no SS increase because everything costs the same, except you get an increase in medical premiums because some things cost more.

Inside the envelope was a petition to sign. It was already filled out, including my printed name and town. Three versions - one for my congressperson (how does AARP know this stuff?), and one each for my senators.

AARP is an organization for old people like me, so the petition must mean business, I thought.

"We can't fix our economy without fixing health care. The current health care system costs too much, wastes too much, makes too many mistakes and gives us too little value for our money," I am urged to tell my officials. Sounds the preamble to "our health care stinks." The solution is coming next in the petition?

"Americans won't be secure in their retirement until health care costs are under control.

"Health care reform is one of our top priorities at AARP, and as a member, I urge you to work with your colleagues to push for a health care plan that ensures access to affordable, quality health coverage to all Americans regardless of age or any pre-existing conditions." That sounds like everyone has to buy healthcare and the government will subsidize some people, but not do anything to lower the windfalls going to drug companies, insurance firms and other healthcare pariahs.

"My" petition closes with "I, along with millions of Americans, support AARP's efforts and urge you to commit to working on a bipartisan basis to reform health care this year..."

Bipartisan! That's the solution? Republicans said they won't vote for a bill.

What's wrong with AARP? Don't they get it? Don't we need to negotiate drug prices with the drug companies and set up a public option to compete with the insurance firms?

Some background from Wikipedia:

"AARP Services, Inc., founded in 1999, is a wholly owned subsidiary of AARP. AARP Services manages the wide range of products and services that are offered as benefits to AARP’s 40 million members. The offers span health products, travel and leisure products, and life event services. Specific products include Medicare supplemental insurance; member discounts on rental cars, cruises, vacation packages and lodging; special offers on technology and gifts; pharmacy services; legal services; and long-term care insurance."

These services are a sideline to AARP's main job of being an advocate for the old, right?

Some seven million persons have AARP-branded health insurance, including drug coverage and medigap, as of April 2007, and AARP earns more income from selling insurance to members than it does from membership dues.

AARP will probably become the biggest source of health insurance for Medicare recipients, and AARP estimates its health insurance customers will be 14 million by 2014.

AARP's 2008 Consolidated Financials show it was paid $652,000,000 in royalties from insurance companies that sold products refered by AARP in that year. Those same financials showed AARP received an additional $120,000,000 for the ads placed in its publications, and many were for prescription drugs. Here's the link: http://www.aarp.org/aarp/About_AARP/annual_reports/

It's quite a trick. You have the victims petition the government to continue to keep them victims.